211 Crew prison gang: Isolation cells can't handcuff leaders

By Kirk Mitchell and Sadie Gurman, The Denver Post

Posted:
03/28/2013 10:06:12 AM MDT

According to court documents, on Nov. 21, 1999, Benjamin Davis, a longtime shot-caller for 211 Crew, was in an isolation cell at the state prison system's highest security facility, Colorado State Penitentiary, just outside CaÃ±on City, above, when he wrote a "kite," or letter, to Seth Ready, an old friend who helped him pull robberies in Denver. (GLENN ASAKAWA)

Evan Ebel spent most of his adult life behind bars tutored by white supremacist gang members on the three Rs of prison gang life: reputation, respect and retaliation.

Now investigators are looking at whether Ebel — a 28-year-old parolee, 211 Crew soldier and the prime suspect in the killing of state prisons chief Tom Clements — acted alone or, as the code of the 211 Crew dictates, obeyed an order from the gang's shot-caller.

The Denver Post has reviewed hundreds of pages of Denver District Court records that show how the 211 Crew, even from the confines of the most restrictive conditions prison officials could impose, managed to order assaults with homemade shanks, orchestrate drug deals, and enforce gang rules inside and outside of prison.

211 Crew founder Benjamin Davis. (Colorado Department of Corrections)

The documents illustrate what experts say: Prison officials have frustratingly few tools to stop gang activity. Just a few weeks before Clements' death, his staff exercised one of the few options available. They broke up a group of 211 Crew members at one prison and sent them elsewhere, diluting their numbers and strength.

A Department of Correction source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said authorities are investigating whether that move sparked retaliation against Clements.

State officials have taken extra security precautions since Clements' murder, including beefing up security for Gov. John Hickenlooper and putting the state's 20 prisons on modified lockdown. The prisons have since been taken off lockdown, said DOC spokeswoman Alison Morgan. Prison officials also put 211 Crew founder Benjamin Davis in isolation for his own protection.

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Authorities continue to collect evidence suggesting that Ebel shot Clements on his doorstep March 19 in Monument and two days earlier had killed Domino's Pizza delivery driver Nathan Leon in Denver.Ebel was killed in a shootout with Texas authorities on March 21 after a high-speed chase.

The court records obtained by The Post, which included letters, affidavits and interviews with prison officials, stem from Davis' conviction for racketeering, assault, conspiracy and solicitation to commit assault, as well as his subsequent appeal.

Evan Ebel. (Colorado Department of Corrections)

Davis, whose nickname was Lep, short for Leprechaun, was detail-oriented about controlling his network, which stretched beyond prison walls, the court records show. His soldiers obeyed his orders after their prison releases and while jumping through hoops for their parole officers.

In a March 14, 1999, letter to a 211 Crew soldier, Davis gave meticulous directions about how to slip methamphetamine into a letter and mail it to him. "Handle this bro & next time I'll send you to get a gram of stuff!!"

In a phone call to another gang member recently released from prison, he said he wanted 4½ grams of heroin, the records show. Davis sent the parolee a money order from his bank to pay for the drugs.

In many instances, the records indicate, gang business took months or even years to fulfill. Just knowing "retaliation" was one of the guiding principles of the gang was enough to keep gang members in line.

On Nov. 21, 1999, Davis, 37, a longtime shot-caller for the 211 Crew, was in an isolation cell at the state prison system's highest security facility, Colorado State Penitentiary, just outside CaÃ±on City, when he wrote a "kite," or letter, to Seth Ready, an old friend who helped him pull robberies in Denver, the records show.

Every inmate at CSP is in 23-hour lockdown. For one hour a day, inmates are escorted to a tiny exercise room with a single pull-up bar and a shower. They eat meals alone in their cells. But such restrictions didn't stop Davis from issuing orders to inmates throughout the prison system.

In the letter that is part of the court records, Davis ordered a "hit" on Leo "Scarecrow" Arguello, a shot-caller from the Aztecas prison gang who owed Davis $300 for some "dog food," 211 Crew's slang for heroin.

Davis complained that he gave Arguello the money for drugs but Arguello never gave Davis the heroin and didn't return his money, according to the records.

Davis told Ready that he had a "torpedo," or enforcer, lined up to "handle it."

On June 15, 2002, a CSP librarian found papers Davis had hidden in a library book that "green-lighted" a beating on the enforcer, who failed to attack Arguello, the records show.

Passing library books was one of many ways Davis passed messages to other gang members.

"I talk with other inmates through the bottom vents in the cell," Davis said in a 2006 interview with a prison authority. "I can tie a weight, or a Cadillac, to a 'fish line' with a coded note attached to be passed through to another guy's cell." Occasionally, the "tier" porter will pass his messages to other inmates. In most cases, though, Davis communicated to inner-circle members through coded kites.

In 2003, gang leader Jody Mobley wrote Davis a letter complaining that a 211 Crew soldier at Sterling Correctional Facility was having sex with a black inmate and snitching. It was an issue

Davis had dealt with harshly before, with the beating of a gang member.

"This cat ... was getting chewed up by a non-Caucasian," Mobley wrote. "What the hell is the world coming to?"

By that time, Davis was in the Supermax Correctional Institute in Boscobel, Wis. In November, he wrote a letter to Mobley, the records show.

"Be careful what you write. They are all over me here," Davis cautioned. "I told Dan that I hold the keys, but you're in charge while I'm gone. We'll work together and keep (expletive) rolling."
In the same letter, Davis ordered a hit on the inmate having sex with a black man, the court records show.

On Jan. 13, 2004, prospective gang member Joel Rader and gang member Eric Barnard attacked the offending gang member in the yard, the records show.

While the assault by Rader gave him a place in the gang, Davis also warned those who claimed gang affiliation without drawing blood.

He wrote to an inmate who had 211 tattooed across his stomach. "Getting ink (you) don't earn ... is very dangerous," Davis wrote from Wisconsin. "You have two choices right now: (1) I'll have a razor blade sent to you — and you can cut that patch off your body or you can make some ink & blacken it in. Or (2) you can go through the process of Earning your bones."

The 211 Crew is just one of scores of violent gangs that have formed behind prison walls in Colorado and elsewhere. And like other gangs, its "hits" on fellow inmates don't always pan out, according to those who have investigated and prosecuted the 211 Crew.

While "Blood In, Blood Out," might be the rule, it is not always enforced, as was the case in indictments in 2004, in which crew members testified against one another.

"They are no more or less violent than any other DOC gang," one prosecutor said. "They are no more organized or dangerous."

At times, while Davis was in Wisconsin for two years, 211 Crew members appeared to be undisciplined, the court records indicate.

On Christmas Day in 2003, Mobley wrote a letter to Davis complaining that nobody wanted to do any hits.

"Dude, nobody follows orders," Mobley complained. "Green lights are walking yards with nothing to worry about. ... There was no one retaliated."

And like other gangs, the hierarchy and makeup are continually evolving.

Davis returned to Colorado from Wisconsin in February 2005. He was sent to Sterling Correctional Facility, where he was held in administrative segregation.

DOC sources say Ebel was at Colorado State Penitentiary and Sterling until his parole Jan. 28.
Robert Walker, a nationally recognized expert on gangs, said indoctrinated gang members continue following gang orders after their release for fear that they could be killed for failing to obey a shot-caller's orders.

Prison gangs bring a certain discipline, order and structure that officials and guards — outnumbered and outmatched — are unable to provide, said Jorja Leap, an adjunct professor at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

"This has actually been part of their tool kit on how to keep prisons in order," she said.

Officials have few tools to quell gang activity, and those they do have, such as solitary confinement and protective custody, hardly keep members from communicating.

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